The Riddle of Man

Riddle of Man: Notes

On-line since: 5th October, 2006

Notes

Note from page 48:

Otto Willmann has written
an excellent book dealing with
The History of Idealism.
With a far-reaching knowledge of his field, he points out the weaknesses and
one-sidednesses that have come into the evolution of world views in the
nineteenth century through the continuing effects of the Kantian formulation
of questions and direction in thought. The depictions I gave in this present
book sought within the life of the world views of the nineteenth century to
find those impulses and streams through which thinkers have freed themselves
from Kant's formulation of questions and direction in thought, and through
which they have taken paths to which precisely they could do justice who judge
the matter according to just such a far-reaching view as that underlying
Willmann's book. Many views that wish to attach themselves to Kant in modern
times, without sufficient insight into the preceding evolution of world views,
revert in fact to views characterized correctly in the following words by
Willmann to the effect “that according to Aristotle our knowledge
begins with the things of the world and on the basis of sense perceptions
only then forms the concept ... that this forming of concepts occurs through
a creative act, in which the human spirit grasps the thought-element within
the things ... One still always has to indicate to certain sense-bound and
banal people that perceiving can never enhance itself to the point of being
able to think, that sensations and feelings cannot bunch together into
concepts, and that, on the contrary, perceiving and sensing must themselves
be constituted by something, and constituted, in fact, on the basis of the
thoughts existing in the things; ... only thoughts can grant us any
necessitated and universal knowledge.” Someone who thinks in this
way — if he frees himself from certain misapprehensions holding sway,
understandably, among the adherents of Willmann's kind of thinking —
can speak with comprehension and appreciation, even from Willmann's standpoint,
of Schelling's and Hegel's direction in thought and of much that, like them,
rums away from “sense-bound banality.” A time will also come when
Willmann's kind of thinking will be judged with less bias in this direction
than is now the case. This kind of thinking will then be just as correct in
its appreciation of what, in the evolution of modern world views, has broken
free of “sense-bound banality” as it is correct now in condemning
views that have fallen prey to this and many other
“banalities.”

Note from page 129:

If someone wanted to object
that this presentation does not reckon with the findings of physiology
relative to the senses, he would only show that he has not correctly
estimated the implications of this presentation. Such a person could say:
Out of the dark and silent world, configurations arise that continuously
diversify and finally become organs through whose function the “dark
ether waves,” for example, are transformed into light. But nothing is
said by this that has not already been dealt with in our presentation. In
the picture of the “dark world” the eye is also depicted; but
through no eye can that be thought of as perceptible which through
its own nature must be thought of as imperceptible.

One might also assert that our
presentation does not reckon with the fact that the modern natural-scientific
world picture no longer stands on the same ground as Du Bois-Reymond, for
example, stood. One no longer expects as much as he and his scientific
contemporaries did from a “mechanics of atoms,” from a
“tracing back” of “all natural phenomena to the movements
of the smallest particles of matter,” etc. These older theories are
overcome by the views of E. Mach, by the physicist Max Planck and by others.
Nevertheless, what has been said in this book also applies to these most
recent views. That Mach, for example, wishes to build up the field of natural
science upon sensation (Sinnesempfindung) compels him, in fact, to
take up into his world picture only that element of nature which by its very
being can never be thought of as perceivable. He does indeed take his start
from sensation, but cannot return to it again, through his presentations, in
a way that accords with reality. When Mach speaks of sensation, he is
pointing to what is sensed; but, in thinking the object of sensation, he
must separate it from the “I”. He does not notice now that in
so doing he is thinking something that can no longer be sensed. He shows this
through the fact that in his world of sensation the “I” concept
flutters away entirely. For Mach, the “I” becomes a mythical
concept. He loses the “I”. Because — in spite of the fact
that he is not conscious of this — he is unconsciously compelled,
after all, to think of his world of sensation as incapable of being sensed,
his world of sensation casts out of itself that which does the sensing: the
“I.” In this way Mach's view is precisely a proof of what has
been presented here. And the views of Max Planck, the theoretical physicist,
are the best example of the correctness of the above presentation. One can
say, in fact, that the most recent thoughts about mechanics and
electrodynamics are moving even more in the direction we have described
here as necessary: out of the world of perception to sketch a picture of
a world that is not perceivable.

Note from page 158:

In judging questions relative
to world views, many people are particularly confused by their predilection
for words they believe are thoughts but actually are only vague, soothing
reflections. Much is gained when one is not unclear about the fact that
words are like gestures that can merely point to their object, but whose
actual content has nothing to do with the thought itself Oust as little as
the word “table” has to do with a real table.) A little book
that has just appeared,
Cultural Superstition
by Alexander von
Gleichen-Russwurm, speaks quite forcibly about this phenomenon in many
areas. — Whoever grants validity to the viewpoint of seeing
consciousness will find it particularly necessary to acknowledge fully
what the natural-scientific way of picturing things also has to say about
human soul phenomena. The prominent Viennese anthropologist Moritz Benedict
has written (1894) a
Psychology (Seelenkunde)
— which from a
certain viewpoint is outstanding — based on the natural-scientific way
of picturing things. Because of the author's healthy sense for reality in
judging human soul life, one can regard this
Psychology
in many ways
as a positively classic work. And one can hold this view even if one must say
to oneself that the viewpoint of seeing consciousness we have characterized
in this book would be rejected quite decisively by the author of this
Psychology,
Those who think like this natural scientist, however,
will not always have to maintain this rejection.